Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Rocket Launch Stage II

Thanks to some great parent helpers, kids were able to add rocket-style features to the one and two liter bottles that were donated to our class.  Today the weather held long enough for us to see if the add-on's would make any difference to the flight pattern.  We found that in general the 2-liter bottles went way higher than the one-liter bottles and the wings and cones had little effect on how the bottles flew or how high they went.  Below is a transcript of some of what we talked about afterward.

Ryan:  The two liter bottle went up higher.  When we turned them into ships they went lower.
Stacie:  The first time that we did it, it went up higher.  When we added all the wings it went slower.  The first one went up higher and faster.  The second ones wouldn't go up so high.
Logan:  I think that the 2-liters went up higher because of aerodynamics.  I"' thinking it went up higher because the aerodynamics wasn't so heavy.  When we added all the rocket stuff it was more heavy.
Bella B.:  I think that the 2-liter went up higher because it was taller and didn't have as much stuff.  The second time the bottles were smaller and had more stuff on them.  

So now we are working with the lingering question of what made the 2-liters go higher?  Here are some initial hypotheses.

Reta:  Is it the amount of water in the bottle? The 2-liter bottles hold more.
JJ:  Was it the height of the bottle? They're taller so maybe they go higher. 
Logan: Was it the aerodynamics (shape of the bottles)? Maybe they move through the air differently based on their shape.
Further testing and observation is required!


Monday, November 24, 2014

Weekly Notes for the Short Week of 11/24

This week will be another short one.  November and December can be slightly discombobulated due to all of the breaks, holidays and weather events, but we are still cruising right along in Room 5.  There is no homework this week but please do keep the kids reading and writing.  

If you happen to be doing a lot of cooking this week, remember that there are a lot of math and science skills and concepts you can practice in the kitchen. This video is a good reminder on how to use and remember the different units for measuring volume and quantity while cooking.


Over the past few weeks we have started some reading groups to keep all of our students supported and challenged.  I try to meet with each student as often as possible for a brief reading conference because that is the most meaningful way to check in on their growth and guide their development.  Small groups are a way to learn and practice some reading strategies and skills together.  Right now we are doing a lot of word work, zooming in on parts of words, letter sounds, rhymes and common spelling patterns.  There are lots of little pieces to know but my overarching goal is to foster an interest in language and a curiosity about words.


Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Our Water Bottle Launcher Worked!

Amazing, right?

Here are some creative  explanations of how the launcher worked based on our observations and reading about how air pressure works.

Reta:  You know how there's water in it?  There's not room for much air to get in.  When you pump in more air there's no room for all that air and it tries to escape.  The water started to squirt a little on the sides and then it just burst off!

Beckett:  When you push the air in with the pumper all the air gets cramped inside of it.  So if the bottle is holding on hard and the pressure starts pulling it up off the connection and then it goes up in the air.

JJ:  So once you pump it the air pushes it up.  When you pump it again it just wants to go up so it blasts off.

Bella K:  So when the air is pushing on it, it's like force.  And there's gravity pushing on it too. It's like a battle between gravity and friction and the air pressure and it eventually the air pressure wins out and it blasts off and then gravity wins and pulls it back down and then they're all getting along and it rests on the ground.

Logan:  Gravity is pushing the bottle down like the magnets that D brought in.  Gravity is like a magnet, it's pulling everything down to the center of the earth.  The air pressure makes it want to up and its more than the pull of the gravity for a minute.

Sophia:  It's like the water is in the cup and the pump makes it fill up with air.  Air passes through the water and it pushes the bottle off of the launcher.  Once it's off gravity pulls it back down.

Some of these explanations are kids' approximations of the scientific information we've studied.  But overall they have such a knack for turning complex ideas about matter and forces into related concepts that are easier to old on to.  This kind of metaphorical talk is key for owning new learning.











Monday, November 17, 2014

Air Pressure, Memoirs and Number Sense

There is so much intense learning and positive group growth happening right now.  We had a short circle meeting on the carpet this afternoon and I asked each kid to share what they thought was going well at school.  They started with some of the low-hanging fruit: lunch and recess.  Good to know those are going well.  But as we moved around the circle the answers deepened.  
"I like writing now that we're working on our memoirs and I think it's good how, well, people are helping each other out so much. I saw lots of people helping ---- when he felt sad earlier."  
"Math is fun and I never really liked it that much before! It's because I'm trying to figure more stuff out on my own."

As gratifying as it is to hear these comments from students, I was reminded of how important it is for them to hear each other share what they thought was going well.  We make a lot of time to express compliments and appreciations for each other in class, but those are always really personal and direct.  When we take time to generalize and name what is collectively true it becomes a badge of honor for the whole group.
We have been taking a fair amount of time to explore some principles of visual design each afternoon.  I showed students some different ways to make marks on their papers with different lines and colors to create a sense of visual rhythm.  I don't have any good pictures yet of  their creations but come in and see the growing display of their visual music displayed on the storage closet by the door.  Below you can see a picture of some of the early experiments we've been doing into thinking visually with symmetry and asymmetry.


In Math, both 2nd- and 3rd-graders have been working on strategies for adding and subtracting.  Naturally 3rd-graders are working with larger amounts, but the basic concepts are the same. I'm really enjoying watching the students work through concepts of amount, drawing on their innate ability to compose and decompose numbers.  I think this article is a concise, if kind of technical, explanation of the concept.   I like to think about it this way - we all have a pretty innate sense of amounts up to five.  You can look at or touch a collection of things (coins, buttons, etc.) up to five and know how much it is pretty intuitively but everything beyond that relies on our ability to count, think about groups, and use language to mentally talk ourselves into understanding how much we are encountering. Below a 2nd-grader is showing his smart way of grouping amounts for quickly figuring out a total.


We have also begun a unit of study on writing memoirs.  We are going to stretch what our  young writers feel like they can do by exploring rich sensory description and the baffling world of punctuating dialogue. Fortunately our Room 5 authors are ready for the challenge.  Every day when we head out for a break there is a large contingent of writers who ask me if they can take a clipboard outside so that they can keep writing.  I hate to stop a productive creative moment but I do ask them to take the opportunity to move their bodies!  


One way we are make the stories more mindful and setting ourselves up for intentional work is by storyboarding our ideas first.  I call this "Plan it out/try it out" because there are some stories we think we might be ready to tell but when we try to talk them through or sketch them out, they don't seem ready for the page.  On the other hand, once you've laid out the beats of a memory like this, it is hard not to feel ready to go.



Oh, and as far as air pressure, take a look at this PDF if you want to try the science exploration we are about to do at home. I got the parts to do it at the hardware store for under $10.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Making Inferences - Explanations and Conclusions based on Evidence


We are about to dive headlong into a very sophisticated thing that humans do all the time: making inferences.  We are naturally good at making conclusions based on observations.  You smell smoke and the fire alarm goes off in the kitchen. Oops! You left something on the stove for too long.  We make these kind of conclusions all the time.  We don't have explicit, direct knowledge of what's happening but we can figure it out quickly.  So it should be easy when we read, right?  Well, kind of.  

Young readers, like the students int Room 5 often need some guidance and some practice.  Fortunately, there is a genre tailor-made for the art of the inference - mysteries.  And so we are digging in. Students found every mystery in our class library and we made a special collection.  Thanks to my brilliant colleagues, we now have a set of tracking forms that students will use to identify the features of a mystery.  Our readers will assemble clues as they read their mysteries drawing conclusions and backing them up with evidence.

Here are some ways you can join the learning at home.  
Reading Rockets is a fantastic resource for early literacy learning. They have this great collection of resources for families looking to dig into inferential thinking.

The Multnomah County Library is an amazing institution.  I am a dedicated fan and use the library resources almost daily, either online or with actual books.  There's a good chance that a book your child has enjoyed this year was checked out from the library.  They also have lots of great recommended books lists like this one of elementary level mysteries.  Make it a family event and head to the library for some new mysteries!